Nothing But My Truth
by HecateA
Summary: The truth, as far as Tonks can tell, is that Remus can't believe that someone would love him as much as she does. When Mad-Eye assigns the two of them to do the Order's potion inventory and they inevitably start bickering, she gets creative. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings:** NA

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**Nothing But The Truth **

Remus was the only one in the room who didn't give Moody a look when he read off that week's schedule, pairing him up with Dora for a task. He was too busy looking at his hands, clasped over his lack.

"Problem?" Moody grumbled to the room. "Have I got something in my teeth?"

"No," Remus said, at the same time that Dora proclaimed "Handsome as ever, Mad-Eye."

On another day he may have smiled at that, but his stomach was too busy shifting and folding in on itself.

When Dumbledore adjourned the meeting, Remus turned to look at Dora. She leaned back in her seat, her tongue poking at the inside of her cheek as she pondered something unhappily (he was acutely aware that that something was probably him). Her hair today was a deep midnight blue, loosely braided and dotted with silver bobby pins. Remus couldn't quite stop himself from likening it to constellations in the night sky and he desperately wished that he could tell her that. A few weeks ago, he'd have whispered it in her ear and she'd probably have smiled, then he could have found out if she'd done it on purpose or if the imagery was but a happy coincidence.

She turned to look at him. The tired, bland look on her face was nowhere near as romantic or delicate.

"Should be done quickly enough," she said, getting up. She was wearing her clunkiest pair of dragonhide boots and an overall dress over a black sweater and lace tights.

"Right," Remus said. "Have you, umm, have you got the list of potions?"

"Yup," she said, popping the p.

"Alright," Remus said. "Let's get to it, then."

The two of them made their way past the crowd of Order members who were milling around and socializing after the meeting. The looks that the two of them got weren't lost on Remus, and he knew that once they were out of ear's reach the conversations about them and their status would pick up again.

A few weeks ago, he had asked Sirius to help him and run interference to slow the rumour mill's spinning.

"Nope," Sirius had said, popping the p like his cousin always did. "This is a _you _problem that _you _created because of all the other you problems out there. I will support you and all the decisions that you make always, but I will not reward or facilitate this one."

"Will you promise not to partake in the gossip about the state of my relationship, at least?" Remus had sighed.

"Nope," Sirius had said with an even more dramatic pop of the p. "Your secrets are safe with me, but I can't promise not to make shit up or spread other peoples' conspiracy theories. Fleur Delacour has a particularly vivid imagination and that is to be encouraged, you know."

"I suppose that this is your final stance on the subject," Remus had sighed.

"Absolutely," Sirius said.

"Just… please don't start any pregnancy rumours," Remus said, resolved.

"I won't, but you should know that Dedalus Diggle already has," Sirius had said helpfully.

Dora was walking particularly fast and he had to speed up to keep up as she made her way through Grimmauld Square, to the room they'd dubbed The Apothecary's Chamber. Dora liked to call it "Snape's Sex Dungeon," but Remus didn't like the images that that particular nomenclature conjured.

They kept it locked but Remus was one of the Order members who had a master key for the house, mostly because Sirius said he'd rather throw himself off the house's roof than have anything more to do with it and had delegated months ago. Inside, the room's bookshelves were lined with potions, balms, elixirs, perfumes, sachets of leaves, home-made tea brews, healing ointments, and any other possible brew or mixture that the Order would ever need.

Inventory was going to be long and painful, especially with the heavy air hanging between and over and all around the two of them.

"I'll take the left hand side of the room, you take the right," Dora said.

"Right," Remus nodded. "We've only got one list, though."

She drew her wand and tapped it to the piece of parchment Mad-Eye had handed her.

"_Gemini," _she said. "Problem solved."

She handed him the duplicate and turned to her shelves, hopping on a spare chair to reach the top shelf and immediately tripping and falling off.

Remus, half anticipating this manifestation of clumsiness when he saw her climb, caught her.

She looked up at him, breathless for a second, and thanked him curtly before wriggling out of his arms.

"Let me help you back up if you're going to go on the chair," Remus said, offering a hand.

"I'm fine," she said.

"Dora, I don't want you to get hurt if—"

"Could you do me a solid and not finish that sentence? I'm really not in the mood for anything you're about to say right now." Dora said.

Remus bit his lip. "I know I've already hurt you…"

"No, Remus," Dora sighed, climbing back onto the chair. "You haven't already hurt me. You dismissed me. You belittled me by pretending that I'm unable to think things and their implications and their consequences through and factor them in to my decisions. I guess that was easier to do for you than admit that maybe the thing that's defined your life isn't quite as definitive as you'd always thought, but it's a bit hard for me to accept. So take the right side of this room and get to work so that we can get inventory done."

Remus scratched the back of his head and turned back to the potions. Whenever he correctly identified a potion on the walls, he checked off its name on the list and noted what quantity they had in store. It was boring work, which unfortunately gave his mind more than enough time to reel and ponder her words.

"I didn't mean to belittle you," he said finally, breaking the silence and her simple request. "You're the swiftest, toughest, most spirited, and cleverest witch I know."

"I asked you to be quiet," Dora said.

"I just want you to know that it's not you," Remus said.

"So what is it, then?" Dora asked, turning back to him. "Is this one of those _it's not you, it's me _moments from a made-for-television Muggle film they can only bother to run in the middle of the day, Remus?"

"That's oddly specific," he mumbled.

"But is it?" she asked, putting a hand on her hip and cocking her head, sending the stars tumbling over one shoulder.

"I'm a lot," Remus said plainly. It was unsophisticated and nearly laughable, but it was honest.

Dora scoffed.

"That you are," she said. "Thing is though: I'm a lot too. Everyone's a lot. You're not the only person that's hard to manage. Fuck, swing a cat in this household and you'll hit a dozen people who are _a lot _but who don't let that stop them."

"Nobody else has a curse in their blood," Remus said.

"I looked it up," Dora said, turning back to the shelf and checking behind a small glass container to see if there was anything behind it. "Contemporary research is suggesting that lycanthropy as a virus doesn't live in the blood but situates itself in the bones, which is why the transformations it elicits are so painful but don't altogether damage the body."

He was shocked. There were so few people studying lycanthropy and even fewer publications willing to publish their work, even fewer in English.

She looked over her shoulder at him, seeming unimpressed. As she raised her eyebrow, he noticed that there was a streak of silver interrupting the deep, dark blue—something like the tail of a comet...

"I did my homework," Dora said. "Do my homework, whatever. I knew what I got myself into, Remus."

"Right," Remus said, scrambling for what to say next and unfortunately defaulting back to his academic ramblings. The kind of thing that used to make Lily sigh and James smack him in the back of the head. "That—that was an interesting article, but I really would want to know more about their methodology and—"

"You're not listening to me," Dora said, shaking her head.

"I am, you mentioned the article…"

"You're hearing me but you're not _listening," _Dora said, turning back to him and hopping off the chair. "I didn't read that article because I was deeply invested by their well-written abstract Remus, I read it because I'm deeply invested in you. That abstract was really bad, so you should know! What will it take for you to believe me?"

Remus didn't know. All he knew was that he wanted out—out from this situation, out from this conversation, out from this room…

"What?" Dora said. "Go on, I don't give a shit about what you thought about that article's methodology but I would love to hear what you've got to say about this."

Remus was frozen. He couldn't answer, he could just look at her and the stars in her hair and the way her fingerless gloves matched the lace of her tights and the way the lace stretched across her skin and how the silver jewelry around her neck matched the streak of silver in her eyebrow and…

She turned back towards the shelf, hopped back on her chair, snatched a vial containing a colourless potion from the top shelf, and hopped back down.

"Alright, Mr Academic," she said, twirling the vial in her fingers. Still, he managed to catch enough of the handwritten letters on its yellowing label to guess what it was: Veritaserum.

"Here's some methodology for you," she said, flicking her thumb to pop the potion's lid off.

"Dora!" he said.

She drained the potion before he even finished saying her name. Every last drop, and she even held the vial top-down to show him how empty it was. Then she set it down and made direct eye contact as she turned back to him.

"I love you," she said. "In a real way, not in a mediocre movie that plays in the daytime way. And that's the truth because I physically can't lie right now, even if I've been saying so for ages. Also, this potion tastes nasty. It's gross, really gross. You taste good—you taste like Earl Grey and toothpaste because you brush your teeth so religiously and sometimes chocolate if you dip into your stash. I used to think Earl Grey was an old person's tea but it's grown on me because of you and I drink it at work now, but I sugar it more than you ever would. I hate work, I wish I could do more for the Order since that's actually meaningful, but I also don't want to because then I end up seeing you and I love you, but you don't believe me. I'd do anything to have you believe me, which is why I did this, I suppose."

"Dora, you don't have to talk," Remus said. "You're under the influence of a potion…"

"A potion I drank because I wanted you to know I'm saying the truth," she said stubbornly. "I love you and even the parts about you that I hate I love, like the way you push everyone away but can't help taking care of people—you're giving me your concerned look right now, but you shouldn't be concerned because I drank the potion on purpose. To tell you that I love you. To tell you that I'm not afraid because you aren't something to be afraid of. To tell you that I don't care what people think because I love you. And if I cared what people think, I wouldn't walk around with blue hair."

"Your hair looks like the night sky today," he confessed at last. "With all the pins in it, kind of like stars…"

Dora smiled.

"In the back, the pins are arranged look like the big and small dippers," she said.

"Oh," he smiled. "Ursa Major and Ursa Minor."

"Only you would spit out Latin like that," Dora said, her smile broadening. "I love you."

"I love you too," he said. "That's never been in question, Dora. Trust me on that, even if you didn't leave me any potion to swallow."

"That's enough, Remus. Love is enough," Dora said. She reached out and took his hand. He pulled away. "I'm not being questioned, Remus. I'm not saying or doing anything I don't want to. And that's what I'm telling you, what I've always wanted to tell you. Love is enough."

"I know, I know," he said. "But… I don't know if it's enough, Dora. And if it's not, I'm afraid there's very little else I can give you."

"You can't know that unless you try," Dora said. "Love can't drink veritaserum to prove that it's being honest, only I can do that. Also, I wouldn't want it to. It's really, really gross. The aftertaste is even worst."

Remus couldn't help but laugh at this.

"I dipped into my chocolate stash earlier, before the Order meeting," Remus admitted. He didn't add that he'd done it nervously because he'd known and dreaded seeing her. "I can probably find something to clear your palette."

"I rather skip the intermediate," Dora said.

Remus nodded. "Okay."

She knotted her hands in the front of his sweater and pulled him down to her, kissing him square on the lips. She came into the kiss lightly and softly, probably meaning for it to be just light and soft, but as soon as Remus tasted her blackberry lip balm (his favourite of her many different options) his hands found her hips and he pulled her closer. Then, he pushed her backwards so that she was up against the bookcase. She gasped against his lips in surprise but didn't waste more time _not _kissing him. Her hands moved up to lace behind his neck, then one of them got tangled in his hair to more effectively push him down towards her.

He pushed her harder against the bookcase and she took advantage of the support she got from the piece of furniture behind her and his hold on her to hike up her legs. She'd just finished wrapping them around his waist, when the door to the Apothecary Chamber opened.

Her Auror reflexes kicked in and she turned towards the door to face Sirius first. He looked smug as he leaned against the doorframe with what could only be called a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Well, well, well…" Sirius said. "Making the most out of inventory duty, are we?"

"Inventory is the worst," Dora blurted. "Now fuck off, I want to go back to kissing him."

Remus felt himself blushing but he couldn't help but smile, though he couldn't meet Sirius' eyes. That was a problem for _later _Remus. Current Remus was quite at peace.

"Mad-Eye sent me down here for an update," Sirius said. "He wanted to make sure you two weren't going to murder one another after Fleur pointed out what a precarious situation he had put the two of you in. Now what _ever _shall I report back?"

"There's no more veritaserum," Dora blurted again.

Remus laughed and buried his face in the crook of her neck.

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**Stacked with: **MC4A; Winter Bingo; Shipping Wars; Hogwarts

**Individual Challenge(s): **Rainbow Focus; Gryffindor MC (x2); Hufflepuff MC; Bow Before the Blacks; Brush; Seeds; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Location, Location, Location; Trope It Up A (Shipper On Deck); Trope it Up C (Mutual Pining); Themes & Things A (Love); Themes & Things B (Surprise); Themes & Things D (Sweater/Jumper); Themes & Things E (Dress/Skirt); Themes & Things F (Honesty); Old Flames; True Colours; Rian-Russo Inversion (Y); Short Jog

**Word Count: **2565

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_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks (Technicolour Moon)

**List (Prompt): **Winter Micro 2 (Purple Prose)

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_**Winter Bingo**_

**Space (prompt): **3D (Blue)


End file.
